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Home at Dawn by Nicolas Trudgian. (Y)

When No 49 Squadron Lancasters bombed the S.S. barracks at Berchtesgaden on 25th April 1945, its aircrews completed a campaign that had begun 5 and a half years earlier in September, 1939. From the very beginning, 49 Squadron were in the thick of the action with one of their pilots, Roderick Learoyd, winning Bomber Commands first Victoria Cross. In 1942 it was Lancasters of 49 Squadron that led the epic raid on Schneider armament and locomotive works at Le Creusot. In 1943 they flew the shuttle-bombing raids to Friedrichshafen and Spezia, attacked the heavily defended rocket sites at Peenemunde, and in preparation for D-Day, bombarded the coastal batteries in Normandy and the V-1 sites in the caves by the river Loire, north of Paris. Later in 1944 the squadron notably took part in the raid on German Baltic Fleet, continuing to fly important bombing missions against the Nazi war machine until the final collapse of the Third Reich. So it was fitting that an RAF squadron whose history went right back to 1916, should make the coupe de grace at Berchtesgarden. Northern Europes short summer nights, with darkness lasting but a few hours, often saw the RAF bomber crews returning to England at dawn, and it is one such scene which is caught up over the river Orwell at Pin Mill, Lancasters of No. 49 Squadron descend low over Suffolk, heading towards their base at Fiskerton. The night raid on Hamburg is almost completed. Spitfires from No. 129 Squadron, based at Hornchurch, having made an early morning attack on German installations in Holland, have picked up the bombers and escorted them home.

AMAZING VALUE! - The value of the signatures on this item is in excess of the price of the print itself!

Item Code : NT0318Y

Home at Dawn by Nicolas Trudgian. (Y) - This Edition

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**Signed limited edition of 500 prints. (Two prints reduced to clear)

Ex display prints in near perfect condition with some slight damage to the border.Great value : Value of signatures exceeds price of item!

Royal Air Force fighter aircraft, maximum speed for mark I Supermarine Spitfire, 362mph up to The Seafire 47 with a top speed of 452mph. maximum ceiling for Mk I 34,000feet up to 44,500 for the mark XIV. Maximum range for MK I 575 miles . up to 1475 miles for the Seafire 47. Armament for the various Marks of Spitfire. for MK I, and II . eight fixed .303 browning Machine guns, for MKs V-IX and XVI two 20mm Hispano cannons and four .303 browning machine guns. and on later Marks, six to eight Rockets under the wings or a maximum bomb load of 1,000 lbs. Designed by R J Mitchell, The proto type Spitfire first flew on the 5th March 1936. and entered service with the Royal Air Force in August 1938, with 19 squadron based and RAF Duxford. by the outbreak of World war two, there were twelve squadrons with a total of 187 spitfires, with another 83 in store. Between 1939 and 1945, a large variety of modifications and developments produced a variety of MK,s from I to XVI. The mark II came into service in late 1940, and in March 1941, the Mk,V came into service. To counter the Improvements in fighters of the Luftwaffe especially the FW190, the MK,XII was introduced with its Griffin engine. The Fleet Air Arm used the Mk,I and II and were named Seafires. By the end of production in 1948 a total of 20,351 spitfires had been made and 2408 Seafires. The most produced variant was the Spitfire Mark V, with a total of 6479 spitfires produced. The Royal Air Force kept Spitfires in front line use until April 1954.

The Avro Lancaster arose from the avro Manchester and the first prototype Lancaster was a converted Manchester with four engines. The Lancaster was first flown in January 1941, and started operations in March 1942. By March 1945 The Royal Air Force had 56 squadrons of Lancasters with the first squadron equipped being No.44 Squadron. During World War Two the Avro Lancaster flew 156,000 sorties and dropped 618,378 tonnes of bombs between 1942 and 1945. Lancaster Bomberss took part in the devastating round-the-clock raids on Hamburg during Air Marshall Harris' "Operation Gomorrah" in July 1943. Just 35 Lancasters completed more than 100 successful operations each, and 3,249 were lost in action. The most successful survivor completed 139 operations, and the Lancaster was scrapped after the war in 1947. A few Lancasters were converted into tankers and the two tanker aircraft were joined by another converted Lancaster and were used in the Berlin Airlift, achieving 757 tanker sorties. A famous Lancaster bombing raid was the 1943 mission, codenamed Operation Chastise, to destroy the dams of the Ruhr Valley. The operation was carried out by 617 Squadron in modified Mk IIIs carrying special drum shaped bouncing bombs designed by Barnes Wallis. Also famous was a series of Lancaster attacks using Tallboy bombs against the German battleship Tirpitz, which first disabled and later sank the ship. The Lancaster bomber was the basis of the new Avro Lincoln bomber, initially known as the Lancaster IV and Lancaster V. (Becoming Lincoln B1 and B2 respectively.) Their Lancastrian airliner was also based on the Lancaster but was not very successful. Other developments were the Avro York and the successful Shackleton which continued in airborne early warning service up to 1992.